Player Character
The Player Character is the protagonist of Fallout: New California, known by the nickname, the "Star Player". As in most Fallout titles, the gender, appearance, personality, and other aspects of the protagonist are customizable. History Overview According to what the player is deemed to know at the start of FNC, The Player Character was born, along with his/her adopted siblings Mandy, Jason, and Shawn, to the Orion Tribe, one of the California clans descended from Vault 18 Exiles. The orphaned children of their sister tribes, Ares and Ladle, were also adopted by families living within Vault 18 following an expedition led by Kevin Rossman, with the Vault Overseer raising the Star Player, Shawn, Mandy, and adopting their brother, Jason, as his own. Vault 18 On the last night of the Vault Ball season, the protagonist runs towards Johnny Matheson, following a rousing speech by Coach John Bragg. The player must choose to Tackle Johnny or try to Dodge him. This is the first crucial point in the game where the player chooses between the Path of the Warrior (Tackle) or the Path of the Scientist (Dodge). Hours later, Vault 18 is swept up in a coup by Colonel Bragg's Enclave Patriots. Shawn, Mandy and Jason are killed in the process, leaving the protagonist an opportunity to seek revenge or choose to join the usurping Enclave dissidents. New California Other than their mysterious origins as an adopted tribal kid from Vault 18, the player is free to define themselves as a loner, an asshole, a nice person, a charmer, a scientist, a nerd, a stereotypical jock, or a hard ass run and gun soldier, with occasional hints that they can define themselves however they wish, such as a psychotic mass murderer (with its own unique ending) or a go with the flow chill dude. The Star Player is repeatedly sold the mixed message that they should never let anyone tell them who to be, while the very same people also try to pin them down to a preconceived perception of who they think they are. This is heavily lamp-shaded by Dr. Rossman quoting from Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit in the beginning of the game's Science Path introduction, a book he only knows from charred remains burned for heat by "some illiterate wastelander." It's up to the player to accept or embrace their role within these 1950s stereotypes, with ample opportunities to subvert them, sometimes peacefully and other times through violence. This message of "character mattering more than your origin" becomes the consistent theme throughout the story, from intro narration to ending slides, with many people telling the Star Player who they are, and the Star Player either refusing or accepting their judgment. Origins The origins of the player are contentious, but towards the end of the game it is revealed that the Star player is the creation of the Super Mutant "Father," a Nightkin, formerly named Mark, the friend of Richard Grey from Fallout 1, only mentioned in passing by Harold and The Master's own recollections in a terminal at Mariposa Military Base. The Father, grievously wounded by the explosion caused by the The Vault Dweller when the Cathedral was destroyed, harbored an indelible grudge against the one who sundered the sacred Unity. As a Nightkin Commander, Mark was tasked with spreading the seeds of the Master to new locations, helping transplant the wildly mutating Richard Grey between Mariposa and The Cathedral, as well as having part of himself biologically and psychically linked to the Master's biomass. This holy charge left him obsessed, dreaming only of vengeance and a return to his former purpose in life. He managed to sample the Vault Dweller's blood before the explosion, a habit he formed from tracking down prime normals as a Nightkin, and intended to use the blood to hunt down his enemy. Unfortunately, the blood had been contaminated by others as it laid splattered on the ground, leaving the genes mixed among four others. Who those other four may have been include Wiggum, '''Lucy, Dominic Moore, or Gideon, 'the other prime normals held in captivity in The Master's Lair -- though others, including any of the captured vault dwellers or Children of the Cathedral, could also be potential sample origin candidates. The Father never found the Vault Dweller or the Chosen One, claiming they died happily in old age, denying him his vengeance. After his discovery of Fort Daggerpoint, the Father sought to continue the Master's work, rescuing his brethren from a pitiful and meaningless wandering for their seemingly eternal lives. He drew together those who still retained their psychic sensitivity through his link to the Master, and called them to him from across the eastern wastes. In Master Vornaught's terminals, it is revealed that The Father then found Project Brazil, a pre-war FEV enhanced Symbiote alluded to in Fallout 1's ZAX 1.2 files in The Glow. It was a heavily modified Flatworm from the Marianas Trench, infused with FEV to rapidly reproduce new test strains. As an unintended side effect, the flatworms also rapidly regenerated their own lost segments, as well as the lost limbs of any contaminating multi-cellular organism they were bonded with. Only one in several million of these experiments survived, making functional Project Brazil strains exceedingly rare, possibly with only one or two in existence by the final hours of the Great War. The Father chose Project Brazil as the source of his experimentation regarding the "Sterility Problem" facing his mutant brethren. So long as they are unable to reproduce, his master race would be doomed. Project Brazil allowed him the means to simply clone a perfected Super Mutant infinitely, so long as the original host was born with the Symbiote as part of their body. Hastened by his delusional quest for vengeance, The Father concocted an absurd plot to clone the original Vault Dweller using the blood he sampled, not knowing whether his sample was genuine or not. He kidnapped many women from the Vault 18 Exiles, Prime Normals who left Vault 18 of their own accord, and implanted them with subsequent generations of his Project Brazil bonded embryos. Only one survived, a woman named Orrika. This twisted experiment generated dissent among the Super Mutants in Daggerpoint. Master Vornaught himself confronting the Father after several attempts at reason, only to be killed and drawn into the makeshift "Unity." Orrika was then left among the tribes until she gave birth to the last of the experiments. Shortly thereafter, the adults of the tribe were abducted and transformed into FEV Horrors, failed Super Mutants, by the beta version of FEV stored in Daggerpoint. Orrikia herself died during this raid, her body left in the "Cave of Stars" with her pip-boy and notes to her offspring. The Star Player and their three siblings were picked up and taken to Vault 18 by Dr. Rossman, where they remained until the end of their maturation. 18 years later, when the Enclave broke open Vault 18, the player was killed, along with their siblings, in an explosion planted by Terra Mayson, which unintentionally collapsed the lower apartments. Their Siblings, having received an inferior and malfunctioning Project Brazil strain, died instantly. The Player however managed to heal from their wounds, initiating the Symbiote's rapid regeneration abilities. After Escaping Vault 18's destruction, whether as an Enclave Agent, a Wasteland Scout, or eventually joining the NCR, the Raider Alliance, or going Wild Card, the player meets the Father at the last battle of Fort Daggerpoint. He reveals his concocted plan to a player willing to converse with him, through dialogue and terminal entries teasing out the truth. The Father claims the player is the Vault Dweller's clone, but in reality, he has no idea if the player is or isn't the right one -- only that they survived this far, so they "must be." After the player either joins the Father, kills him, or convinces the Father to fight by their side to defeat the Enclave, they are confronted by both Annai Oran and her own Project Brazil clones, John Bragg and Chevy Bragg . This conversation reveals the Father's true madness, with Colonel Bragg calling an enemy player, "just a Xerox of some dead guy he scrapped off the kitchen floor." At the end, the Star Player is left to leave California with more questions than answers, having stepped in FEV and launching Project Brazil into its final mature stage, imbued with wild healing powers. Their origins erased by classified military records and the nuclear detonation of Fort Daggerpoint and Vault 18, none remember their face, or name. New Vegas Following most endings of ''Fallout: New California, (with the exception of The Unity and Empty Earth endings,) the Star Player wanders around the wastes until finally returning to California. Their efforts as a parcel carrier helped support the founding of the town of Hopeville along with a band of wasteland survivors at a place called The Divide. The Star Player's healing abilities allowed them to navigate the storms around the Big MT, and find a route through the worst hazards between New California and the East. The Fort Daggerpoint Key, originally a Nuclear Football from Camp Navarro stamped with an Old World Flag, which the Star Player had kept on them as a useful tool for getting through old military bases, armed the nuclear missiles that resided under Hopeville's ancient silos. When Ed-E was repaired and activated, this detonated the nuclear missiles beneath the city, setting in motion the events that lead to Fallout: New Vegas - Lonesome Road. The Star Player was the only human survivor of Hopeville, being able to regenerate and heal from the radiation and grievous burns that covered their body. Due to Project Brazil being so finicky, only a faulty Beta version after all, this nuclear bath causes their healing abilities to slowly degrade. It is suggested the Courier can't recall exactly what happened that day, other than their last run to The Divide being an NCR errand. The Star Player decided to continue to work as a Courier for the Mojave Express, keeping a low profile as they slowly regain their mortality. They are then cornered by Benny and the Khans at the start of New Vegas, shot twice in the head, and left in a shallow grave, where they barely survive on sheer willpower, or simply out of luck, alone. The player's story continues in New Vegas. Category:Characters Category:Vault 18